One of the hardest things I had to do when I moved was to get rid of some of my books. My house was starting to look like a Barnes & Noble. I kept the textbooks I use for my courses and a few others that I found especially useful or interesting. The following list is in no particular order. It contains some of my favorite books that I kept. I often recommend them to my students:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This book is required reading in many courses. Although some students hesitate to pick up “self-help” books, this one is a classic for good reasons.

Emotional Intelligence in Action by Marcia Hughes, Bonita Patterson, James Terrell, and Reuven Bar-On. This book is a helpful tool to develop emotional intelligence in teams.

It is the American dream to start a business, achieve growth with that business, and possibly someday pass it along to children or sell it for a profit. In the article, Boomers Can’t Retire, it was explained how some entrepreneurs have found that they are unable to retire. The American dream may not be as easily attainable as some may think. The Wall Street Journal article, Venture Capital’s Secret: 3 out of 4 Start Ups Fail, listed some unfavorable start-up statistics:

75% of venture-backed US firms don’t return capital investment

Around 30% of start-ups fail completely – 95% if the definition of failure is projected return

Nonventure-backed companies fail more than venture-backed

60% of start-ups make it three years and 35% make it ten

Author and Professor at Harvard Business School, Noam Wasserman, has some advice for future entrepreneurs in his book The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. In his book, Wasserman explains, “Often downplayed in the excitement of starting up a new business venture is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs will face: should they go it alone, or bring in cofounders, hires, and investors to help build the business? More than just financial rewards are at stake. Friendships and relationships can suffer. Bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin.”

The new entrepreneur must consider problems they may encounter with people, as well as possible pitfalls he or she may encounter down the road. By having foresight, the new entrepreneur can learn to be proactive to change.

The Big Bang Theories’ Sheldon Cooper is a classic example of why it is important to have a high emotional intelligence quotient (EQ). In the TV sitcom, Sheldon demonstrates what it is like to have a high IQ without a corresponding high EQ. Daniel Goleman wrote about why this may be problematic in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More than IQ.

Sheldon is a very intelligent human being. This is something that he constantly points out to nearly everyone he meets. However, his high IQ is not tempered with interpersonal skills. Having strong intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are an important part of having a well-developed EQ. Sheldon may be an over-exaggeration of someone that lacks these skills, but we have all met book-smart people who just do not seem to understand how to interact with others.

Some companies’ yearly performance reviews may consider how employees demonstrate “concern for impact”. In other words, the company want employees to be aware of how they came across to other people. Any employee that has to deal with other people on a daily basis must learn to see themselves as other see them. What may seem as perfectly acceptable behavior to an individual may come across as offensive to someone else. Companies are placing more importance on developing individuals’ EQ levels and hiring people that have already developed interpersonal skills.

Sheldon is almost robotic in his lack of people skills. He does things because he has been taught that “it is the social convention” to do so. For people who see any part of their personality in the Sheldon character, I recommend reading Goleman’s book. I also think that it is important to read books about how to improve EQ levels. There are some sites on the Internet that help people improve emotional intelligence. Check out the following links:

Today’s Ask Dr. Diane: I am interested in self-publishing a book. Can you tell me about your experience with self-publishing and things you have done to market your books?

That is a good question and one that I often receive. Check out my previous posting: How to Publish or Self-Publish Your Book. I used Createspace for self-publishing. I had a great experience with them. They are affiliated with Amazon. The site offers different options based on authors’ needs. Some of those options included:

Do-it-yourself tools to design interiors and covers

Comprehensive design and editing

Expanded distribution options

I found that the company was very responsive to my questions. They took my design ideas and gave me a couple of covers to choose from based on my input.

Createspace is not limited to book publishing. They also work with musicians and filmmakers.

Once your book is published, and available on Amazon, you will then have the ability to create an Amazon author page. That author page can incorporate links from your blog. Authors also have the option of making their books available on Amazon’s Europe-based site.

There are plenty of books that can help increase your sales on Amazon’s site. One book that I thought was pretty useful was: Aiming at Amazon.

In Erik Qualman’s 2010 book Socialnomics, he described how socialnomics exists “where consumers and the societies they create online have a profound influence on our economy and the businesses that operate within it.”

Social media is the new word of mouth. Now that individuals look online to find out information about products from their peers, marketing has taken a new turn. Companies must create a social networking presence in order to survive.

Citation Machine is a website that helps students learn how to format citations and references. According to the site, “Citation machine helps students and professional researchers to properly credit the information that they use. Its primary goal is to make it so easy for student researchers to cite their information sources.”

The site also includes a “most cited today” section where it displays some of the most recently cited websites and books.

A student can simply put in a site and author information and it will give the appropriate example of how to cite that information within their paper in APA or MLA. If the student has the ISBN number, it is even easier.

The following example shows how entering the ISBN can return APA citation results. First enter the ISBN.

Then hit submit. That will pull up a page that looks something like this.

Click “Make Citation” and it will create the biographical citation information for the reference page as well as the in-text citation information that will look like this.

Note that I did not enter the publisher or publishing city information in the prior example. This led to a citation that is lacking that information. I purposely did that to show that if information is left out, the results may not be perfect. Although the in-text citation information is correct here, the reference page information is missing the publisher and location. Be sure to double-check that all appropriate information is input or the output may not be correct.

If you do not have the ISBN, you can enter the information you do have. Note that on the left side of the screen, the site gives you choices of books, articles, journals, blogs and more. Click on the appropriate source and enter the information that you have.

Although this system is not fool-proof, it can be a helpful instrument in guiding students regarding APA or MLA citation and reference formatting.

Freud, Jung, Adler and other famous theorists’ names are commonly mentioned, but many people do not know the basis of their important research. Theorists have grappled with understanding factors that may impact personality. Many theorists have dedicated their lives to helping people deal with complex personality-based issues.

In the workplace, it is common to run into personality conflicts. Many of these may be resolved by having a better understanding of personality preferences. It’s Not You It’s Your Personality is a book that defines personality, gives detailed information about personality assessments, and explains how people can use this information to be more effective in the workplace. Personality assessments are based on the work of some very famous theorists. The following chart contains some of the top names in personality research. Click on links provided to find out more about these theorists and the importance of their research.

Today’s Ask Dr. Diane: My professor told me I have to cite using scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. What does that mean?

College students are often asked to include scholarly peer-reviewed journals as sources for citations. If the school offers an online library, it can be easy to search for these journals by simply marking the box under the search line that lists something like “search for peer-reviewed journals only” or “scholarly peer-reviewed”. By marking this box, anything that comes up in the search should be appropriate to use for college-level assignments.

A peer-reviewed journal insures that the article is of the highest quality and reflects sound research. Library.usm.main.edu does a nice job of explaining the peer review process:

Articles submitted by authors are evaluated by a group of peer experts in the field.

The reviewers recommend whether the submitted article be published, revised, or rejected.

This review process is often performed “blind”, meaning the reviewers do not know the names or academic affiliations of the authors, and the authors do not know who is reviewing their work.

What is meant by scholarly journals? CalPoly explained, “Scholarly journals contain articles written by, and addressed to, experts in a discipline. They are concerned with academic study, especially research, and demonstrate the methods and concerns of scholars. The main purpose of a scholarly journal is to report original research or experimentation and to communicate this information to the rest of the scholarly world. The language of scholarly journals reflects the discipline covered, as it assumes some knowledge or background on the part of the reader. Scholarly journals always rigorously cite their sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies. Many scholarly journals are published by professional organizations.”

Manic depression or bipolar disorder is a mood disorder where people experience abnormal levels of high energy or depressive states. While generally thought of as a disorder, there are many examples of people who have this disorder and used it to their advantage.

In the article Manic Depression: The CEO’s Disease, the author points out that many leaders can be successful due to the mania involved. They also may not even realize they have the disorder. “On average, it takes 10 years from the onset of the illness for a manic depressive to receive a correct diagnosis. In the interim, some of them do very well in business. And as more and more such sufferers come forward, many psychiatrists are convinced that their good fortune is at least partly a result of their illness. Dr. Sagar Parikh, head of the Bipolar Clinic at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto, says 10% of those who have manic depression actually perform better in their jobs than a “healthy” individual. “[Manic depression] gives them that extra bit of panache to do the big deal,” says Parikh.”

In Joshua Walters’ Ted.com video, he points out the importance of being just crazy enough. He explains that as a performer, the crazier he is on stage, the more entertaining the audience finds his act. He decided to embrace his illness and now walks the line between what he calls mental illness and mental skillness. He points out that there is a movement to reframe the hypomanic part of the illness and to look at it is a positive. He refers to John Gartner’s book The Hypomanic Edge where Gartner writes about how this edge allows people to compete. Walters explains that being this way maybe doesn’t mean you are crazy, but that you are more sensitive to what others can’t see or feel.

In the New York Times article Just Manic Enough: Seeking Perfect Entrepreneurs, author David Segal explained how people could take advantage of being in the bipolar spectrum. Segal noted, “The attributes that make great entrepreneurs, the experts say, are common in certain manias, though in milder forms and harnessed in ways that are hugely productive. Instead of recklessness, the entrepreneur loves risk. Instead of delusions, the entrepreneur imagines a product that sounds so compelling that it inspires people to bet their careers, or a lot of money, on something that doesn’t exist and may never sell.”

Tom Wooten, author founder of the Bipolar Advantage, has made it his “mission to help people with mental conditions shift their thinking and behavior so that they can lead extraordinary lives.” He sees it as being bipolar without requiring the word disorder.

The following is a list of famous successful people who have been labeled as having manic depression: